


waking at the witching hour

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Canon Era, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28115748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: George Mukherjee wakes at the witching hour for a chance to think quietly, but the rather irritating new presence in their dorm has upset that too.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady & George Mukherjee
Kudos: 17





	waking at the witching hour

Four o’clock in the morning is what my brother calls the witching hour. It is when is best to pray at Weston to avoid being spat at, when to read letters from our parents, when to practise our scripture and write notes to each other. I am the only person who is ever awake at four o’clock in the morning, and I prefer it that way. Which is why I do not quite like it when I wake at half-past three to hear movement, the sound of somebody else existing and awake in the same space as me. The normal is shifted slightly, and it makes me prickle.

Our dorm is arranged in a peculiar way, with two beds tucked around the corner behind a small, jutting partition wall. Until three weeks ago, I was the only person with a bed around the corner, and I liked it. I could sit on the end of Bob’s bed, eat cakes and sweets (and pretending to swallow bites of tongue to appear normal), and whisper about girls and ghost stories, and then tuck myself back behind the wall to write, pray, and move about in the calming way that my brother tells me that I must keep quiet. Three weeks ago, Alexander Arcady arrived, a bright-eyed boy from Massachusetts, and he has taken up residence in the bed next to mine and I now have nowhere to be without somebody else interfering. I have taken to climbing up to the roof at early hours of the morning, but somebody else has got there first.

The window is thrown open and the curtains are blowing inwards, billowing towards me in my bed and spilling cold air all over me. I get up from my bed, tie my dressing gown around me, and put on my school shoes. I climb up on my chest of drawers and reach out, climbing into the window frame and swinging out to the drainpipe. It’s uncomfortable to hold the rough sort of plastic, but I am able to bear anything so I make it up to the roof, and Alexander Arcady is right there, leaning against the chimney stack.

Just as I hypothesised.

“Alexander,” I say, and he jumps.

“George! What are you doing up here?”

“I come up here every night,” I tell him, holding myself against the rather horrid wind. “What are you doing here? This is my space. In fact, our part of the dorm was my space until you came along.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Alexander replies. He is a curious sort of person, bright and happy and intelligent, but with a peculiar sort of intrigue behind his eyes. He is taller than me, about a head, with very blue eyes and blond hair and freckles on his nose. “I only... nobody seems keen to talk about emotions at this school.”

I agree. “No,” I say, “nobody is.”

“I needed to think and it is hard when I have established myself as so happy. And I am usually happy but…” He clenches his fists as I move slightly to the side, and I see the way that he tries to hide a letter behind his back.

“Go on then.” I draw myself up as formally as I can. “What’s wrong?”

Alexander Arcady pulls what Harold would call ‘a face’. “Rather un-English to talk about emotions, isn’t it?”

“I like breaking rules,” I reply, and he laughs, gesturing for me to come and lean beside him.

“You seem like a decent chap, George.”

His accent is still grating but it is not as annoying as I thought. “Cheers. I could say the same for you.”


End file.
